College English is the professional journal for the college scholar-teacher. CE publishes articles about literature, rhetoric-composition, critical theory, creative writing theory and pedagogy, linguistics, literacy, reading theory, pedagogy, and professional issues related to the teaching of English. Each issue also includes opinion pieces, review essays, and letters from readers. Contributions may work across traditional field boundaries; authors represent the full range of institutional types.

"What does the explosion of interest in reading in the 1980s and 1990s, followed by a dearth of consideration, suggest about how reading is to be understood. What exactly is reading?" (From Mariolina Rizzi Salvatori and Patricia Donahue, “WHAT IS COLLEGE ENGLISH?: Stories about Reading: Appearance, Disappearance, Morphing, and Revival,” p. 200)